JEFF Bezos’ Blue Origin is set to blast its third private crew to space today, including the first American astronaut’s daughter this time.

The spaceflight will last roughly 11 minutes, launching from the base in Texas and soaring to just beyond the 100km-high internationally recognised boundary of space.

The six-member crew will unbuckle and enjoy a few minutes’ weightlessness before the spaceship returns for a gentle parachute landing in the desert on Earth.

The launch was pushed back because of high winds, but is now set for 8.45am local time (1445 GMT) today.

Laura Shepard Churchley, whose father Alan Shepard was the first American to travel to space in 1961, will be flying as a guest of Blue Origin.

The suborbital rocket is named “New Shepard” in honour of the pioneering astronaut.

Michael Strahan, an American football Hall of Famer turned TV personality, is also a guest, along with four paying customers: space industry executive and philanthropist Dylan Taylor, investor Evan Dick, Bess Ventures founder Lane Bess and Cameron Bess.

Lane and Cameron Bess will become the first parent-child pair to fly in space. Ticket prices have not been disclosed.

“It is kind of fun for me to say an original Shepard will fly on the New Shepard,” Shepard Churchley, who runs a foundation that promotes science and raises funds for college students, said in a video.

“I am very proud of my father’s legacy.”

Shepard performed a 15-minute suborbital space flight on May 5, 1961, barely a month after Soviet Union’s Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space, orbiting the planet.

Shepard, who died in 1998, went on to be the fifth of 12 men to have set foot on the moon.

Prior Blue Origin flights have flown billionaire founder Bezos and Star Trek actor William Shatner to space.

Bezos, who made his fortune with Amazon, envisages a future in which humanity disperses throughout the solar system, living and working in giant space colonies with artificial gravity.

This, he says, will leave Earth as a pristine tourism destination much like national parks today.

This year has been significant for the space tourism sector, with Virgin Galactic also flying founder Richard Branson to the final frontier, and SpaceX sending four private citizens on a three-day orbital mission for charity.

The industry’s predicted growth means that the Federal Aviation Administration will stop awarding astronaut wings badges to commercial space travellers from next year, though it will continue to recognise them on its website.

“The Astronaut Wings programme, created in 2004, served its original purpose to bring additional attention to this exciting endeavour,” said associate administrator Wayne Monteith in a statement. – AFP, December 11, 2021.